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Polite Cell Phones
yEvb0 writes "Researchers at Motorola and Carnegie Mellon University are developing more polite cell phones. Strategies include programming the ringer to turn on and off according to the time of day, monitoring sound light levels to determine if the owner is a movie theater or talking to his boss, and even letting callers decide whether they'd like to interrupt based on this information."
Set your phone to vibrate. It's been working for me for years. Non-invasive when doing anything in my daily routine.
Is there really a reason I should have to enter my schedule into my phone? Because it's not going to happen.
My work here is dung.
a polite human being.
Seriously folks! How hard is it to turn off the ringer? Are we so daft these days that our phones have to be polite for us?
I meta-moderate because I care.
"Taking away my rights" is what happens when I throw their phone in the nearest trashcan, "Invasion of privacy" happens after that, when they feel the sudden impact of my foot in their groin.
Thankfully, restaurants and theaters are allowed to block cellphone transmissions here in the Netherlands.
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Of those phones which do ring in an inappropriate place, the owners of the great majority have simply forgotten to turn their phone off (they're forgetful, not sociopathic). Movie theatres, concert halls, libraries and other please-keep-quiet places could have short-range radio equipment inside which sent a "this is a quiet zone" signal. You'd program your phone (and it would come programmed by default) that when it was receiving that signal it would go onto the vibrate-only ring preference. When the signal was lost, it would revert to your default. So when you entered, and when you left, there would be no need to remember to set the phone correctly (the nagging ads always remind me to turn my phone off, but very often I forget at the end and leave my phone off for the remainder of the day). Similarly noisy places like train stations and airport concourses could broadcast a "this is a noisy environment", which your phone would typically interpret to mean that it should use a loud, shrill ringtone.
There >are Phones should, incidentally, have an "answer with hold" button. So a doctor in the movies whose phone rang (silently) could take it out, notice that it's the hospital's number, and push "answer with hold". The caller would get a short recorded message saying "this person is aware of your call, and will be with you shortly - please hold" - that way the doctor can take the call, but doesn't have to talk into the phone until they've walked into the theatre lobby, where they can take the phone off hold and talk.
## W.Finlay McWalter ## http://www.mcwalter.org ##
the greatest thing about email is it is asynchronous. i can communicate with someone else on my schedule, without my thoughts being interrupted by random claptrap. that's why my first cell phone ever was a blackberry, and before that the idea of a cellphone in my life horrified me. it didn't represent freedom to me, it represented being chained whereever i went. even now, my blackberry is silent, no ring or vibrate whatsoever, i just look at the screen every 5 minutes or so. i can't imagine a life interrupted and ruled by the random claptrap of a cellphone ringing
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
http://www.dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,2028 1,18104683-5001022,00.html
Seriously, the problem isn't the gadgetry, it's the people who use the gadgetry. In the link above, a woman's cell phone rings in a movie theater, then she whips it out and starts talking on it during the movie. Polite ringers won't do a damn thing when it's people that are the problem.
Polite people don't need it. Rude people won't buy it or learn how to use it. Seems a wasted effort.